South Elgin (18-15) gave Auburn a semi-preview of Stevenson with guards Matthew Smith (24 points) and Darius Wells (21) rallying the Storm. Auburn had taken a 22-9 advantage with seven different Knights scoring in the first six minutes.

“The way the game started, we thought the game was going to go the way one of ours typically goes,” Auburn coach Bryan Ott said. “Instead, those guys sucked it up.”

The Storm scored the first 11 points of the second half to go ahead 50-40 before Zayvious Hoover (10 points) and Laytwan Porter (16) hit back-to-back 3-pointers.

“It stunk,” Pittman said of falling behind by 10 points. “It was gut-check time. We just knew we needed this W. We don’t want to go home.”

But it looked as if they might.

“We were in trouble,” Ott said.

After Hoover’s 3, Ott called a “psychological” timeout.

“You could see the whole season unravel right there,” Ott said, “but you’ve still got to believe in your kids. The timeout was simply to calm down, ‘Let’s do what we do. Let’s not get caught up in the moment. This is not getting away from us.’ Believe me, there were no X’s and O’s.”

And, finally, there were no more South Elgin 3-pointers. While Auburn kept getting layups, the Storm, who started 8 of 17 from long range, made only two of their last 10.

“They were hot at first, but then we put pressure on them,” Hoover said.

Nylek Cobb led Auburn with 19 points and Malik Minor added 13 to give the Knights five scorers in double figures.

“We’re not used to teams scoring 70 points on us,” Trammell said. “It was scary, but we knew if we stuck together, we could win.”